Page 20 of Not Another Happily Ever After

“Thank you,” I whisper, holding tight to the warmth spreading through my chest. Sixty seconds may not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but when it’s all a person has to give… “Thank you.”

This time, he meets my watery gaze, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth before he smothers it behind a cough. “Yes, well. You’ve got a leaf.” He gestures toward the poorly brushed mane hanging over my shoulder. “Just there. Wouldn’t want your father to see it.”

I do? “I do.” Huh.

I pull the little blue leaf free and comb my fingers through the dark locks when voices on the other side of the door draw my attention.

“This cannot wait, Oren. This curse has my people stripping in the streets. Their skin rubbed raw from silk threads. Silk. Threads.” I hear King Charming hiss.

“I know.” Father exhales heavily.

“My men are as thin as the women! They’d sooner waste away than eat another rotten meal!”

“Do not speak to me of waste! The very foundation of my kingdom was built on its people’s strength. And we both know the curse took that and then some. There is nowhere I can goin this realm where her face is not evident. Where I am not reminded of the night we…”

Father moves away from the door, taking the rest of his words with him as he moves farther into the chamber. I lean closer, straining to hear them, when I lean a little too far and lose my footing.

“Ah!” I squeak, barely catching myself from colliding with the tall wooden door. That makes twice today I’ve nearly fallen to my doom. Though, I may as well have. The chambers on the other side have grown eerily quiet.

Rhidland and I exchange a knowing look.

The royal council now knows I’m here.

Worse yet, they know I’m eavesdropping.

“Sunday.” Father wields my name as both an order and a warning.

I heed both, offering Rhidland an apologetic half-smile as I push open the door. Given the pointed look on Father’s face as he storms toward us, the old guard is in no less trouble than me.

“Father—”

A sharp crack echoes through the vaulted chamber before I can finish. Every member of the royal council turns in my direction, their beady gazes indifferent to the glowing red mark left upon my cheek.

I suck in a shaky breath as the room begins to blur.

Not now.

I blink, pressing my lips into a hard line.

Not here.

I swallow hard, forcing myself to focus on the greying, timeworn pillars lining the circular room instead of the pin-prickling sensation spreading through my cheek. That’s when I see him.

The not-so-charming prince strides out from another opening across the chamber with a small golden cage at hisside. My heart tightens at the sight of the small white rabbit trembling behind its bars.

I look to the kings of the realm and then the six royal council members for clues as to why the creature is here. But their stony features reveal nothing.

The prince stops in the center of the circle, just a few feet before me.

“Beastie.” He smirks, revealing the sharp points of his teeth.

A smile fitting for a boy set on sucking the joy from every room he enters. I refuse to feed his malicious appetite with the very spite he so desires.

Instead, I meet his smile with one of my own.

“Thoren.” I reply sweetly, and goodness if it doesn’t feel euphoric to see his face fall at the little nickname I picked for him.

The prince exhales through his teeth, forcing the tension from his face. But I don’t miss the way his fists clench at his side after he sets the cage down on the damp floor. He believes my heart is his to own.